SF denies challenge to Breed being ‘acting mayor’ on June ballot

London Breed can identify herself as “acting mayor” on the June 5 ballot, the city’s Department of Elections has ruled, rejecting a challenge from a voter.

Photo: Jeff Chiu, Associated Press

A challenge to London Breed’s ability to identify herself as acting mayor on the June 5 ballot was swiftly denied by the city’s Department of Elections on Friday.

Karen Fishkin, a District Five resident, filed the challenge earlier in the day, saying Breed’s attempt to list her occupation as acting mayor on the ballot would be misleading to voters. Fishkin also requested that the acting mayor designation be removed from the paperwork Breed filed with the elections department this month.

City and state elections codes, Fishkin contended, prevent candidates from representing themselves as employed at jobs they were neither elected nor appointed to. Because Breed is president of the Board of Supervisors, she assumed the role of acting mayor after the unexpected death of Ed Lee last month. She’s also the supervisor representing District Five.

John Arntz, the elections department director, said that after reviewing the ballot designation challenge, he determined Breed was within her rights to list her occupation as the city’s acting mayor and supervisor.

A representative for Breed “provided substantiation that (Breed’s) occupation is acting mayor and supervisor. It fell under the regulations, and those are her current occupations now, so I accepted it,” Arntz said.

Fishkin couldn’t be reached for comment Friday. Though she signed the challenge as an individual, “not on behalf of any organization,” she is a director of the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council, which has clashed with Breed at times. She can take her challenge to San Francisco Superior Court.

Maggie Muir, Breed’s campaign strategist, said, “I think one needs to look hard at the political motivations” behind the filing of the challenge.

Dominic Fracassa covers San Francisco City Hall for The Chronicle. He previously worked as a reporter and editor for the Daily Journal, a legal affairs newspaper. He started in news in his home state of Michigan, where he worked as a news director of 103.9 WLEN.